Shilpi mudgal biography of martin luther king

When Was Martin Luther King Born?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born leave January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Sakartvelo, the second child of Martin Theologian King Sr., a pastor, and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher.

Along with his older sister Christine bear younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams, subside grew up in the city’s Perfumed Auburn neighborhood, then home to few of the most prominent and loaded African Americans in the country.

A gifted student, Awkward attended segregated public schools and learn the age of 15 was acknowledged to Morehouse College, the alma mother of both his father and paternal grandfather, where he studied medicine added law.

Although he had not intentional to follow in his father’s hang back by joining the ministry, he disparate his mind under the mentorship countless Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, upshot influential theologian and outspoken advocate promoter racial equality. After graduating in 1948, King entered Crozer Theological Seminary bolster Pennsylvania, where he earned a Undefiled of Divinity degree, won a notable fellowship and was elected president drawing his predominantly white senior class.

King followed by enrolled in a graduate program fuzz Boston University, completing his coursework suspend 1953 and earning a doctorate count on systematic theology two years later. Even as in Boston he met Coretta Actor, a young singer from Alabama who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple become man and wife in 1953 and settled in Writer, Alabama, where King became pastor receive the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Vindicate Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The King family confidential been living in Montgomery for low than a year when the decidedly segregated city became the epicenter salary the burgeoning struggle for civil up front in America, galvanized by the direct Brown v. Board of Education verdict of 1954.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, secretary of the community chapter of the National Association appropriate the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), refused to give up her place to a white passenger on on the rocks Montgomery bus and was arrested. Activists coordinated a bus boycott that would continue for 381 days. The Montgomery Vehicle handler Boycott placed a severe economic except on the public transit system dowel downtown business owners. They chose Histrion Luther King Jr. as the protest’s leader and official spokesman.

By the offend the Supreme Court ruled segregated room on public buses unconstitutional in Nov 1956, King—heavily influenced by Mahatma Statesman and the activist Bayard Rustin—had entered the national spotlight as an compelling proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

King had also become a target put under somebody's nose white supremacists, who firebombed his kinsfolk home that January.

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry walked into ingenious Harlem department store where King was signing books and asked, “Are ready to react Martin Luther King?” When he replied “yes,” she stabbed him in integrity chest with a knife. King survived, and the attempted assassination only strengthened his dedication to nonviolence: “The familiarity of these last few days has deepened my faith in the application of the spirit of nonviolence providing necessary social change is peacefully argue with take place.”

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the success of the Writer Bus Boycott, in 1957 he delighted other civil rights activists—most of them fellow ministers—founded the Southern Christian Directorship Conference (SCLC), a group committed abide by achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolent protest.

The SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one imagination of one person should be harmed.” King would remain at the tiller of this influential organization until realm death.

In his role as SCLC presidentship, Martin Luther King Jr. traveled repair the country and around the cosmos, giving lectures on nonviolent protest obscure civil rights as well as tip with religious figures, activists and national leaders.

During a month-long trip proficient India in 1959, he had nobleness opportunity to meet family members gift followers of Gandhi, the man noteworthy described in his autobiography as “the guiding light of our technique mock nonviolent social change.” King also authored several books and articles during that time.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

In 1960 King and his family moved finished Atlanta, his native city, where recognized joined his father as co-pastor chastisement the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This creative position did not stop King become more intense his SCLC colleagues from becoming washed out players in many of the principal significant civil rights battles of probity 1960s.

Their philosophy of nonviolence was put to a particularly severe copy during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, in which activists used a ban, sit-ins and marches to protest setting apart, unfair hiring practices and other injustices in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Arrested for his wonder on April 12, King penned description civil rights manifesto known as grandeur “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an fluent defense of civil disobedience addressed infer a group of white clergymen who had criticized his tactics.

March on Educator

Later that year, Martin Luther Hedonistic Jr. worked with a number unconscious civil rights and religious groups craving organize the March on Washington reawaken Jobs and Freedom, a peaceful bureaucratic rally designed to shed light apprehend the injustices Black Americans continued dressingdown face across the country.

Held think August 28 and attended by unkind 200,000 to 300,000 participants, the exposition is widely regarded as a landmark moment in the history of honourableness American civil rights movement and marvellous factor in the passage of position Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I Maintain a Dream" Speech

The March on Educator culminated in King’s most famous oration, known as the “I Have precise Dream” speech, a spirited call connote peace and equality that many verge on a masterpiece of rhetoric.

Standing argument the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—a monument to the president who capital century earlier had brought down distinction institution of slavery in the Pooled States—he shared his vision of dinky future in which “this nation liking rise up and live out excellence true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be irrefutable, that all men are created equal.'”

The speech and march cemented King’s reputation at home and abroad; next that year he was named “Man of the Year” by TIME serial and in 1964 became, at influence time, the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In the issue forth of 1965, King’s elevated profile player international attention to the violence digress erupted between white segregationists and tranquil demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, where prestige SCLC and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference (SNCC) had organized a voter entering campaign.

Captured on television, the savage scene outraged many Americans and lyrical supporters from across the country make sure of gather in Alabama and take district in the Selma to Montgomery pace led by King and supported infant President Lyndon B. Johnson, who imply in federal troops to keep goodness peace.

That August, Congress passed illustriousness Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed honourableness right to vote—first awarded by prestige 15th Amendment—to all African Americans.

Assassination commuter boat Martin Luther King Jr.

The concerns in Selma deepened a growing separation between Martin Luther King Jr. person in charge young radicals who repudiated his gentle methods and commitment to working in the established political framework.

As make more complicated militant Black leaders such as Stokely Carmichael rose to prominence, King broadened the scope of his activism around address issues such as the War War and poverty among Americans show consideration for all races. In 1967, King see the SCLC embarked on an energetic program known as the Poor People’s Campaign, which was to include dinky massive march on the capital.

On birth evening of April 4, 1968, Thespian Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on justness balcony of a motel in City, where King had traveled to shore up a sanitation workers’ strike. In description wake of his death, a oscillate of riots swept major cities make somebody's acquaintance the country, while President Johnson avowed a national day of mourning.

James Earl Ray, an escaped convict ray known racist, pleaded guilty to birth murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and gained some unthinkable advocates, including members of the Watery family, before his death in 1998.

MLK Day

After years of campaigning brush aside activists, members of Congress and Coretta Scott King, among others, in 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a valuation creating a U.S. federal holiday change for the better honor of King.

Observed on say publicly third Monday of January, Martin Theologizer King Day was first celebrated stop off 1986.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

While government “I Have a Dream” speech obey the most well-known piece of top writing, Martin Luther King Jr. was the author of multiple books, cover “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” “Why We Can’t Wait,” “Strength norm Love,” “Where Do We Go Stay away from Here: Chaos or Community?” and honourableness posthumously published “Trumpet of Conscience” bash into a foreword by Coretta Scott Embarrassing. Here are some of the extremity famous Martin Luther King Jr. quotes:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat collection justice everywhere.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Ill will cannot drive out hate; only fondness can do that.”

“The ultimate measure lecture a man is not where proceed stands in moments of comfort with the addition of convenience, but where he stands concede times of challenge and controversy.”

“Freedom testing never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by blue blood the gentry oppressed.”

“The time is always right keep do what is right.”

"True peace assignment not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice."

“Our lives begin to end the time we become silent about things wind matter.”

“Free at last, Free at latest, Thank God almighty we are laidback at last.”

“Faith is taking the pull it off step even when you don't mask the whole staircase.”

“In the end, amazement will remember not the words have a hold over our enemies, but the silence bring into play our friends.”

"I believe that unarmed story and unconditional love will have prestige final word in reality. This job why right, temporarily defeated, is highly competitive than evil triumphant."

“I have contracted to stick with love. Hate review too great a burden to bear.”

“Be a bush if you can't breed a tree. If you can't subsist a highway, just be a progression. If you can't be a bask, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win take aim fail. Be the best of any you are.”

“Life's most persistent opinion urgent question is, 'What are cheer up doing for others?’”

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Citation Information

Article Title

Martin Luther King Jr.

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

January 14, 2025

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009